Monday, 11 April 2011

Nuts About Sketches # 156 - Two Monkeys

Monday morning again, and time for another sketch from Shawn over at Nuts About Sketches. This weeks sketch is a one pager, and I mixed it up a little bit this week by converting the 12x12 sketch into a 8.5 x 11 page. The sketch called for a 5x7 photo, and seeing as I am predominately a 4x6 photo scrapper, I don't have many 5x7's around! I thought a 4x6 would be more suited to a 8.5 x 11 page, as it wouldn't look so "lost"...

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Anyway... The photo is of Jemma, aged 3 and a half, and a Barbary ape (or a Barbary Macaque to give him his proper name). These are the monkeys that live on the Rock of Gibraltar. They tend to stay on the upper part of the rock, and there are feeding areas where fresh fruit and vegetables are given to the monkeys twice a day. Sometimes the monkeys venture down into the town, but this is very rare. When we lived there I think I saw a monkey in the town once. They are happy up on the slopes, and love the attention from visitors - although we were warned that they can be a bit cheeky, and anything that looked like food would be swiped by them. We never let the kids have a juice bottle or food or even a pacifier on them when we took a trip up the rock, as it was too tempting for the monkeys! I remember seeing one monkey pinch a carrier bag from an unsuspecting tourist, who had just bought some goodies from the nearby souvenir shop, and proceed to take it up a tree and tip it out to see what there was to eat...
The kids loved going to see the monkeys, and the cable car ride that we needed to take to get there.

This was a great sketch for using up scraps! All the papers were from my scraps folder, and I love mixing and matching colours and manufacturers. Using red and aqua is one of my favourite colour combos, although I usually pair it with a white background. This time I continued my latest trend of using Kraft with everything...
I used a "new to me" product on this layout. Last week, I ordered a Grab Box from Sarah's Cards Ltd. The contents are a real lucky dip - you don't know what you are going to get, and each one is different. In my grab box, there was a felt fusion border from Queen & Co, and I knew I wanted to use it on this layout. I like how it matches my Doodlebug alphabet stickers!! A few stars were called for, seeing as Jemma had her "Star" hoodie on (I loved that hoodie, she did too).

Cardstock: Bazzill Basics

Patterned Papers: Making Memories, My Mind's Eye, October Afternoon

Alphabet Stickers: Doodlebug

Felt trim: Queen & Co

Punch: Kars

Chipboard: Maya Road

Buttons: PaperMania

Paint: Making Memories

Glitter glue: Rangers Stickles

Pen: Signo uniball

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Well, I have survived the first week of the school holidays, along with a long week at work. Looking forward to a few days off this week, and Jemma's birthday on Wednesday. Her party is on Saturday - tea out at Scribbles and a sleepover with 3 of her friends.... I am hoping to get a bit more crafting done this week, as last week was a real struggle to get any time in my room at all!!﻿